The boom, the bust, the darkness: suicide rate soars in wake of Canada's oil crisis

In what used to be the ‘Texas of the north’, unemployment is creeping to 2008 levels, employment insurance beneficiaries have doubled, and the once economic powerhouse is in the throes of a potential mental health crisis

In Alberta, 40,000 oil jobs have been lost since the price of petroleum plummeted late last year.
Photograph: David Levene for the Guardian

Jesse Seibel of Whitecourt, Alberta, used to wake up every day at 3am, fully rested and ready to work. Having laboured in the northern oil patch since his teens, just like his father, the tattooed and pierced wireliner had grown oddly appreciative of the work’s long hours and hard labour.

At 26, Seibel, who never finished high school, was earning as much as $5,000 a month threading electrical cables into reservoirs, enough to live comfortably and never miss paying rent and child support.

Then, last February, he was sent on a three-day stint, not knowing that his employer was preparing his termination papers. He learned that he’d been laid off along with others days later. Within months, he and his girlfriend were homeless and moving into his parents’ house.

Now he’s $7,000 behind on child support payments. “I tried so hard to do it on my own, be a good father – the guy who goes to work everyday and earns his money,” he says. “It’s very depressing.”

Seibel’s represents one of 40,000 Alberta oil jobs lost since the price of petroleum plummeted late last year. According to Petroleum Labour Market Information, 185,000 will have been lost by spring, as a result of the market crash.

Only Saskatchewan, another energy-dependent region, has a higher rate, and it’s seen 19% more suicides this year

But just two years ago, life in Canada’s energy hub was different: Alberta accounted for an incredible 87% of the country’s new net jobs, according to Statistics Canada, and more and more people were moving west for work. Today, unemployment is creeping to 2008 levels, employment insurance beneficiaries have doubled, and the once economic powerhouse is in the throes of a potential mental health crisis.

Between January and June, suicides spiked 30% compared to 2014. At this rate, 654 Albertans will have killed themselves this year, an unprecedented number for a region that already had the second highest suicide rates amongst the 10 provinces. Only Saskatchewan, another energy-dependent region, has a higher rate, and it’s seen 19% more suicides this year.

In a widely circulated story this week, the CBC correlated Alberta’s suicides with economic recession. Numerous media have followed, including one conservative publication that’s gone as far as to blame the environmental plans of the province’s new leftist government, but there’s no evidence to support this, says Mara Grunau of Canada’s Centre for Suicide Prevention director.

“Research says that for every 1% increase in unemployment, we will see a 0.79% increase in suicide rates, but it takes two years [for the data to come through],” she says, pointing to a 2009 study of the European economic crises. Thus, she says, the real fallout of high unemployment is yet to come.

But just two years ago, life in Canada’s energy hub was different: Alberta accounted for 87% of all net new jobs Photograph: Todd Korol/Reuters/Corbis

Representatives of four city distress lines haven’t noticed call volumes increasing by more than a few percentage points, but anecdotally several mental health professionals are reporting increased counselling needs. “The issues folks are presenting with are far more complex in times past and we are seeing an increase in financial issues,” says Joan Roy, executive director of the Calgary Distress Centre.

An Edmonton social worker specializing in clinical crises intervention says he’s noticed a sharp increase in suicides after oil prices bottomed out. “And as we approach Christmas of course it gets worst,” says Leonard McEwan. He’s beginning to see many patients who are people in their early 20s to 50s directly or indirectly employed in the oil patch.

“I talked to several people who’ve been laid off after going through various concession to try to keep their job, but the economy turned too quickly,” says McEwan. “Now they’re having to downsize, changing cities and dispose of all their toys, like their big trucks and Ski-doos, but nobody wants to buy that stuff because they can’t afford it either.”

“It’s very depressing,” says Seibel, who’s still unemployed despite sending several hundreds of resumes, including to McDonalds, where he was told he was overqualified.

It’s impossible for mental health professionals to know the cause of this crisis without a demographic breakdown of age, gender and geography, statistics the Alberta chief coroner stopped releasing in 2009.

Recent cases are young, male workers living high-risk lifestyles, where they fly-in/fly-out for up to 24 days at a time

“When we talk about suicide rates, we’re floundering in the dark,” Gladys Blackmore, executive director of Men at Risk, a Grande Prairie-based mental health program targeting tradesmen that was formed during the early 90s.

Three in four Alberta suicides are male and the vast majority are under 55. Blackmore believes many of the recent cases to be young, male workers living high-risk lifestyles, often in work camps, where they “fly-in/fly-out” for up to 24 days at a time.

“There’s a lot of isolation and feeling like they’re not engaged in real life,” says Angela Angel, a corporate consultant and sociologist who wrote master thesis on mental well-being of male mobile workers in the resource sector.

Angel conducted her studies during the last recession, when the price of oil collapsed suddenly to $40 a barrel and more than half of camp workers were laid off, exacerbating many addiction and financial struggles. It wasn’t the financial crisis that motivated her research, however, but the loss of her older brother, an oil and gas worker who commit suicide in 2007. He was 35.

Angel, whose father also worked in the oil patch, describes Jason as “the Alberta boy,” a hard-working truck driver who loved his job despite the long hours and days away from his wife and two sons. “The company he worked for, part of their culture was using [crack cocaine] to work longer shifts and longer hours.”

Soon Jason isolated himself from loved ones. “That was really the start of the downfall for him,” she says. “We thought that he was getting better because he was becoming more communicative, but we know that when someone becomes suicidal they start to have a more positive outlook because they have a plan.”

‘There’s a lot of isolation and feeling like they’re not engaged in real life.’ Photograph: Alamy

When her family buried him, staff at the funeral chapel told her that services for five other young men had recently been held, all suicides at the height of the boom.

“Job sites are all about safety, but at the same time industry is really lacking in their attention to mental wellbeing,” she says. “That’s a huge safety issue.”

The province has budgeted an additional $10m for mental health services and suicide prevention. It’s also undergoing a full review of its mental health strategy, which should be released this month.

“Though health officials do not have enough evidence to conclude what is driving this recent increase, it is a fact that suicide can be precipitated by major life changes such as the loss of a job,” says health minister Sarah Hoffman. “We will be watching these trends as we make improvements to the mental health system.”

Since losing his oil job, Seibel hasn’t worked more than two days a week since. He gets occasional odd jobs, but at a wage less than half of what he made in the oil patch. He hasn’t saved enough to see his daughter this Christmas. “It’s like I’m starting at the bottom again, working my way back up, and struggling every day.”

By habit he still wakes up at 3am, and lies in bed wondering: “What am I going to do for work?”

In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14. In the UK and Ireland the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. Hotlines in other countries can be found here.

This article was amended on 14 December 2015. The original incorrectly stated that the oil industry accounted for 87% of Canada’s new jobs. It has been changed to reflect that Alberta accounted for 87% of Canada’s new net jobs.